Non-Disclosure and Non-Compete Agreements For Freelance Articles?
This article is going to be vaguely rant-driven, but there’re lessons contained within for freelancers and potential hiring people alike.
Basically, a few weeks back, I had a potential client come to me and ask me to do some freelance work. That’s all great… except he wouldn’t tell me what the project was.
Now, it’s pretty tough to give an estimate on cost or the time I’ll need to do a project when I don’t know what it is.
For the freelancers out there, I recommend you quote for a project based on several things: The time it’ll take you to research, the time it’ll take you to write and the complexity of the project.
This isn’t a science and you can play it by ear, but to use an example of each of those things:
- Material for a legal blog will take more time to research than material for a fitness blog
- A technical document will take you longer to write than a blog post
- An e-book or an undergraduate essay is more complex than a product review
Those things affect the cost, and generally your clients understand that if you say, “Your medical paper is more complex than a paper on the benefits of juicing so I’ll need more time for research” you’re not trying to rip them off.
Anyway, back to the potential client.
He wanted me to basically sign a non-disclosure agreement and a non-compete agreement. Before telling me what the hell I was writing about.
Non-Disclosure Agreements and Non-Compete Agreements
There are times when I feel like I come from a different planet to some of the other folks online.
It’s not just when people pay thousands to go to a self-help seminar only to get told, “Yes you can do it if you believe in yourself.”
It’s when I hear absurd ideas like, “I want you to write this thing but I’m not going to tell you what it is until you sign this agreement saying you’re never going to tell anyone or write about the subject without my express permission ever again.”
In other areas, I can see why a non-compete or non-disclosure agreement works. If you’re building a tech-business or creating product prototypes, then obviously you should seek protection for your work. Even with writing, there are laws governing what you can and can’t do with words – both yours and other people’s.
For those who haven’t worked it out – I said “no” to the project. Especially after I got a better idea of what it was about. (Hint: It was literally a carbon copy of someone else’s idea anyway. Weird personal development articles based around a particular topic.)
The thing is that – and this is just my personal opinion – for a freelancer to take on a project where someone is over-eager to throw disclaimers and contracts in your face without telling you what the job is, you’re probably going to get trouble from them.
All of my clients don’t do this and the best clients – and most successful financially – aren’t even remotely like this: Instead, they send me an email saying, “Hey Jamie… write this stuff for us then send us an invoice.”
Of course, if you’re hiring and you do that, you’re going to want to know your freelancer is not going to “steal your idea.”
Are Freelancers Going To Steal Your Ideas?
Probably not.
I’m not going to at least.
Listen, I have over thirty sites to run. I have freelance clients who’ll sometimes drop by and give me thirty articles to write or a 10,000 word sales page or a set of emails for an autoresponder. I have the book projects to do and a million other things that I’m possibly never going to get around to.
Every day, I get more ideas. Ideas are easy to come by… and if you think that I haven’t written in your niche or created a project like yours before, you might be right but you’re probably wrong.
In short… I don’t have time, I don’t have the inclination and if I was going about building a freelance career so I could purposely steal people’s ideas, then I’d be stupid. Here’s the truth: ideas aren’t protected by copyright. You can’t pull someone into court and say, “Hey! I wrote the first ever blog post about taking cold showers so nobody else can write about it!”
As soon as you hit that publish button the world can see your idea anyway. If I wanted to copy your idea, I might as well wait like copycats do.
Now, the reason I went on that personal tangent is because whilst there are no doubt scammy stealer writers out there, good ones are in the same position I’m in. If you’re a decent writer with no problems sticking to a deadline and the ability to read a brief, then there’s tons of work out there and tons of opportunities to play around with your own projects too (it’s what this whole site is about.)
Final Thoughts
I don’t expect all of my clients to work based on a wink and a handshake. Obviously, people have a right to protect their work and I bear no ill will towards the guys who prompted this post.
However if you’re hiring and your first port-of-call for security for your business is to throw weird obligations at freelancers as opposed to getting stuff done, then you’re probably either overthinking or under-thinking what you’re doing. When you’re talking about online articles, you can’t “protect the idea” and if you’re concerned about a freelancer stealing your idea and running away with it, the idea is probably not very solid.
As an example, I’ve written sales letters for a Russian Company in the oil industry. Do you think they’re worried about me stealing their ideas? What am I going to do; move to Russia and start building oil farms?
People who are worried about having their ideas stolen tend to have really generic ideas.
If you’re a freelance writer and someone is over-keen to get you to jump through hoops and sign weird contracts, then you’re probably going to have a bad client. (Again, exceptions apply, my experience only, etc.)
If you’re hiring freelance writers and you’re worried about them stealing your ideas – you’re either hiring the wrong people or you’re insecure about your ideas. And… not to do the whole “wink and handshake” thing, but you could talk to your freelance writer and gauge their legitimateness.